Alpha Protocol
by Hawklan
Summary: Westridge tried to recruit Michael Thorton for AP, but somehow his Intel was faulty and he got himself someone else.


Note: A big thank you to Inachis for helping out with this chapter.

Disclaimer: Buffy the VS was created by Joss Whedon and Alpha Protocol belongs to SEGA and Obsidian Entertainment. I just borrow the stuff to play around a bit. No money is made by this, just for fun and to play around with two things I enjoyed.

Summary: Westridge tried to recruit Michael Thorton for AP, but somehow his Intel was faulty and he got himself someone else.

Alpha Protocol

Chapter 1 – Where am I?

After waking up and not hearing anything near me, I slowly opened my eyes and looked around. Damn, moving my head around wasn't that bright of an idea, cause I immediately felt sick. After fighting back the urge to puke whatever happened to currently be in my stomach, I noted that I was lying on a gurney and from all the stuff standing and lying around, I guessed I was in some kind of infirmary. I slowly sat up and tried to get my bearings.

I tried to remember where I was, but I had no clue at all. The last thing I could remember was that I was in my hotel room in Cairo and that I was preparing my visit to Mirala Tschubai, a sixteen year old girl, and her father, after he had called me and asked for help. Just before I intended to leave my room, I remember hearing the sound of breaking glass and after that all went dark and I woke up here. Wherever that is?

Before I could think more about my fate I suddenly noted a quite annoying beeping sound from somewhere to my right. Looking into that direction I noted a blinking and beeping PDA lying on a table, not far from me.

I slowly stood up and after a few wobbly steps I picked the PDA up and pressed the nice green button on it. The screen lit up and I saw the face of a good looking red haired young woman with some light Asian features. "Finally, you're awake. My name is Mina and I hacked into the security grid of the building you're being held in. You have to hurry and get out of there before they realize that whatever they gave you to put you to sleep has worn off faster than they thought. Put the earpiece of the PDA into your ear and keep the PDA with you, so that I can try to help you get out," she told me.

If whatever they had given me hadn't made me a bit dozy I would have asked myself for sure who she was and why she was helping me, but as it was, I just assumed that she was a hacker employed by the IWC and that she was trying to rescue me after I missed a few check ins.

So I did what she asked of me and put the earpiece in and then quickly went to the naturally locked door. After a short curse I looked around again and grinned as I saw the fire extinguisher on the wall. I took it down and threw it through the big observation window which promptly resulted into a loud alarm blaring off.

Before I could even try to take some cover a man came rushing into the room behind the window, quickly opened the door to my room and like an untrained idiot, tried to rush me. Having trained with, or better, gotten beaten up by several slayers over the years, fighting a 'normal' human, who seemed to have no skills at all in fighting was a piece of cake. With a well placed kick to his midsection and a hit to his temple, I sent him of to dreamland. I quickly searched him, but besides a package of chewing gum, he had nothing on him. Taking it, I left the room I'd been held in and at the end of the small room behind it I saw a flashing alarm panel beside the door to the next room. With some explanations and tips from Mina, I managed to disable it on my second try.

I slowly opened the door and entered the next room. After entering it I saw another guard on the right side of the room, who was luckily enough looking in the other direction. I quickly took cover behind some furniture and then silently moved until I was directly behind him. With a quick hit to his neck I sent him to dream land as well. Sadly he had nothing useful either, just some cash, which I quickly pocketed.

Seeing nothing else of interest in the room I carefully opened the next door. Looking through the small gap I had opened, I saw something like a security station with a guard who was just getting up to start a patrol. After he was several meters into the hall, I sneaked into the room and had to grin as I saw that the guard had left his gun behind. Naturally, as good hearted as I am, I took it into my possession, so that no playing child could hurt itself with it. I quickly checked it and noted that it was a tranquilizer pistol with 8 shots in the magazine.

Wasn't it nice to find such useful toys? Meanwhile the guard reached the far end of the room and was nearly at the point where he had to turn around and come back. I quickly sprinted to a column a bit father into the room and took cover behind it. Counting silently to twenty to get my breathing back to normal I listened for the sounds of the guard's footsteps. I waited for a moment until I thought that he was near enough for an easy shot and then I carefully looked around the column and placed a well aimed shoot in him. Ta-daah, guard number three was dreaming sweet dreams.

After the guard was down I hurried to the door at the end of the hall. Behind it was only a small room with a small counter to the right and some stairs at the end. Looking at the counter again I shook my head in disbelief and quickly grabbed the bullets for the gun. 'Who leaves stuff like that just lying around?' I wondered.

Still not believing such stupidity I went to the end of the room and took the stairs to get a floor down. Before I reached the bottom of the stairs I heard Mina's voice again. "Look out Mike, at the bottom and near the next door there's a security camera. I can't turn it off and you can't just destroy it without raising an alarm again. Try to sneak past the camera while it is pointed away from you."

'Mike?' I thought, but didn't correct her then. I just said, "Thank you for the warning Mina."

I did as she suggested and reached the door without being spotted by the camera. "Wait a moment, there's a guard on the other side of the door," Mina told me.

I waited for a moment and after she said, "Now," I opened the door, rushed in and took cover behind a sidewall. I carefully peered around it and as I spotted the guard I took aim for a moment, then pulled the trigger and thanked god for my soldier memories and the time I'd spent on the shooting range.

Seeing nothing of importance in the room I hurried to the next door and as I tried to open it, found that it was locked. "Damn," I cursed and quickly went back to the downed guard. Searching him I found a few more bullets and a second tranc gun, as well as picklock, but no keys. 'Why the hell does a guard have a picklock on him, but no keys?' I asked myself. I took it all and went back to the door. Now I was thankful that Faith showed me how to use a picklock. I had the lock picked in no time.

I quickly went through the door, picked up some more ammo in the room and sneaked along the catwalk in the direction of some stairs I had seen. After I went down the stairs I saw another guard, who was just walking away from me. I sneaked up behind him and took him down silently to get him out of the way. Seeing two other guards in the far end of the room, I hid him behind some cover and then hurried to the ladder not far from where I took the guard down. I climbed up the ladder and while staying crouched, I followed the catwalk again around to a door at the far end.

Opening the door I saw yet another guard and a security camera. 'Damn, how many guards are there in this building?' I asked myself. I waited until the guard was in the blind spot of the camera and then pulled the trigger and hit… the wall beside the guard's head. Cursing myself, I watched as the guard jumped behind some cover and started pulling out his gun.

I got myself behind the wall besides the door and aimed at the place where the guard hid. I waited patiently until he came up and then pulled the trigger again. This time I had more luck and he went down quickly. Seeing that his body would soon be in the view of the camera, I ran over to him and pulled him into the blind spot without a moment to spare.

Looking around I saw a working computer terminal on my right. I waited until the camera swung away again and then ran over to the terminal. With a few pointers from Mina I quickly hacked into the system, but the only interesting thing in it was an account number and a password for it. I memorized it and then went up some stairs and entered a room, which looked like a briefing room with one of the walls full of monitors. On the screens I could see an older black man, who was watching me.

"All right Mike, that's enough," the guy said.

"That's enough? I think that's my line. The hell is going on? Why did you drug me?" I asked the guy, a bit confused about that Mike thing again.

"We need to keep the location of this facility… confidential. Especially in case you get kidnapped and questioned," he replied.

"I don't give up secrets so easily," I answered.

"I believe you. Everyone says that during the first hour of interrogation," he quipped back.

"So, what is this all about?" I wanted to know, because I had no idea at all.

"I ask you some questions, run you through some more tests, then you and I can talk face to face. That make you feel better, son?" he answered or more precisely, evaded.

"I'm ready. What tests?" I asked.

"Not a physical, if that's what you're thinking," he replied.

I looked at him, shook my head and then said, "No, I figured that was all done while I was unconscious."

"And then some. We ran your blood work, checked your vitals – you seem healthy, even more than healthy, if I can believe the doc. Just one thing we should check… Your psych profile. I've been reading… and re-reading your dossier. Your file makes you seem more like a tourist than an agent. Your passport must be stamped twice over," he said.

I hid my confusion about that and decided to play along, since I had no clue what he was talking about. "The stamps are just for show. I can't confirm or deny I was ever in any of those places – nor were there any witnesses."

It seems my answer satisfied him because next he said, "Well, I hope you like going where it's hot and no, I'm not talking about hell, but someplace close to it."

"I thought I was already there," I quipped.

"Spoken like a man who doesn't care about his career. Good. That's it. Now I'm going to let you out of the pen and you can meet the rest of the crew," the black man said, smiling.

"All right, is there anything I should know?" I asked carefully.

"Nothing you can't find out on your own or from the staff here. They will run you through the basics of weapons, gadgets and espionage tactics. When you're cleared on the basics, come find me for your assignment. I won't lie to you, Mike. It's a big one – and dangerous. But I think you're the man for the job. Make the rounds, I'll see you soon," he said and then signed off.

After that I left the room through the door on the far side of the room. I then made my way through the rooms until I reached the lounge which contained a few lockers, a nice flatscreen TV mounted to the wall, a laptop on a desk and a soda machine right beside a comfortable looking couch.

Just as I entered the room three agents stood up from their places and headed to the training area as the sign on the door proclaimed. One of the agents heard me entering and nodded in my direction. "Hi Mike, I'm Jack. Welcome to our small playground here, the left locker is yours and the SWAT armor should fit you. We'll talk later, it's never a good idea to let Parker wait," he said, waved and then left.

I quickly changed, pulled myself a coke out of the soda machine and turned on the TV. I drank the coke while I watched a sheik Ali Shaheed and his organization Al-Samad taking credit for shooting down a passenger plane, because they were on a Jihad against the evil USA. Yadayada and so on. The same hate triad you always hear from Muslim extremists and which nobody believes except for them. After I finished watching this idiot I turned my interest to the laptop. Playing around with it a bit and remembering the lessons I had gotten from Willow and a few nice pointers from Mina, I soon was inside the email system of the base. I read a few and learned a few things about my new 'colleagues'.

After that I looked at my watch and noted that it was time for my orientation. Having three training ranges to choose from I entered the one labeled 'Gadget Orientation', where I met Agent Sean Darcy. After an introductory conversation with him I must say I wasn't too impressed by him. He somehow hit me like a mix of Andrew and Wood, or half geek, half arrogant asshole, if you want to be specific.

I quickly went to the training area, gathered the stuff I apparently needed, and then aced the training run using all the nice toys they'd provided, like explosive grenades, EMP grenades and so on to blow up a truck, open a door and kill some paper sheet men.

After that I went back to Sean and after listening to his babble for a while I hurried of to Weapons' Orientation. There I finally met Mina in person, luckily for me I'm kind of used to smoking hot women after knowing and living with several slayers and so I didn't turn into a total cave man a meeting that fine example of womanhood. "Hello Mina, nice to finally met you person. Thank you for all the help back there," I said to her. After a nice talk with her I finally got to play with a few new weapons and pulling up my memories of the soldier, I aced this run as well. What can I say, while the Uzi's and the shotgun was fun, I just loved the handgun and the assault rifle.

Either way, while I loved this part, next was 'Espionage Orientation' where I met Alan Parker, who may be an expert analyst, but you couldn't accuse him of being a people's person. I did ok on this run, not as good as on the firing range, but good enough for Parker to let me pass.

After I finished those three Orientation runs, I went back to the soda machine, pulled two cokes out of it and went back to Mina. We talked a bit for a while and after Westridge called and asked about my whereabouts I said, "Thank you for this talk Mina. I'll see you later and maybe we can enjoy some more time together."

She just smiled and nodded and then I hurried to the meeting room again where I know met Westridge in person.

We talked shortly about my performance in the Orientations and then he gave a briefing for my first assignment, which was called Operation Desert Spear and located in Saudi Arabia. Not surprisingly this operation had the sheik I saw before on the TV as a target.

Now my only question is. Do I continue this charade and help those agents, or do I use the opportunity to disappear and return to my friends? After all, I'm not Agent Mike Thorton; I'm Alexander Lavelle Harris, Head Watcher, Africa region.


End file.
